This Week: When the World Says What’s Yours is HIS, Say It’s MINE, Not Just “Disputed”
Many years ago, I had the privilege to serve as what had once actually been the “National President” of the Philadelphia-headquartered then almost-century-old men’s and women’s fraternal order Brith Sholom. Jonathan Tobin at the time was Editor of Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponent, and we invited him to speak at our annual free-brunch for our members. I’d spent much of my time pestering him that the Job-In-The-Jews of an Editor of a Philadelphia Jewish community-owned newspaper calling itself a Jewish Exponent was to be at the throat of the by-me less-than-objective-on-Israel Philadelphia Inquirer like a werewolf. Jon began his remarks to our members more sedately: “Jerry doesn’t think I’m tough enough.” (People asked me a bit later what I’d had to promise Jonathan to get him to publish an article, which he handsomely did, on Brith Sholom’s One Hundredth anniversary. I had to promise to leave him alone for ninety-nine years.)
But I’ve gone on to bigger things since then. This week, I take issue with distinguished Israeli Ambassador Dore Gold, no slouch in defending the Jewish homeland of Israel. In a piece that appeared in Thursday’s (2/4/21) Conference of Presidents’ Daily Alert, “’Occupation’: The Search For an Alternative Term,” Amb. Gold, by me, wasn’t Tough Enough.
The thrust of Amb. Gold’s piece is that “Israel captured the territory of Judea and Samaria, which is also called the West Bank,” in a defensive war in 1967. He cites a former Israeli Chief Justice that this was not “occupied” territory to which the Fourth Geneva Convention applies because the ruler from which it was taken, Jordan, had not been there as its internationally recognized “legitimate sovereign.” He adds that a majority of experts consulted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, administer of the Fourth Geneva Convention, noted “the pejorative connotation of ‘occupation’” and thought alternative language was needed. Gold, referencing “the establishment of a self-governing Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, in line with the Oslo Accords,” says the term “occupation” is “completely irrelevant for describing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Per the Daily Alert, Gold concludes:
“Talking about the ‘occupation’ has become a means of branding Israel unfairly and is often used to wage political warfare against the Jewish state. In light of this background, it would be far more accurate to call the territories ‘disputed territories,’ as is done in similar circumstances elsewhere.” (emphasis added)
I of course don’t disagree with the first of those two sentences quoted above. But not just “The Palestinians” but the World in the voice of the United Nations Security Council, unanimously save for the abstention of the United States, doesn’t call “Judea and Samaria, which is also called the West Bank” just currently “occupied” pending final disposition. The world in UNSC 2334 of 23 December 2016 references “the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem … the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem … the territories occupied since 1967.” The UN “underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 [i.e., 1949] lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations.” It calls over and over again for such a “two-state solution.”
The not just Israeli but Jewish people response to this world assignment of Judea-Samaria and historic Jerusalem to “The Palestinians” who’ve never in history ever ruled any of it should not rest with we ourselves calling these intrinsic parts of our homeland “disputed” between Jews and Arabs but “ours.” We must call both history and international treaty definitive grounds for our claim, and cite Palestinian Arab-majority Jordan, 78% of the Palestine Mandate, as more-than-equitable to Arabs division of Palestine between Arabs and Jews. Let the world call Judea-Samaria and historic Jerusalem “disputed,” a far-cry at that from UNSC 2334. By us, they are Ours.